1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving aiding system for aiding the drive by displaying an image picked up by a vehicle-equipped camera on a displaying means provided to a position that is visible from a driver's seat and, more particularly, a driving aiding system for aiding the backward driving of the vehicle in the hitch coupling operation by backing the vehicle that is equipped with a hitch, which is coupled onto a trailed vehicle, at a rear portion of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
The vehicles onto which a driving aiding system, which is capable of checking the safety by providing a rear-view camera to the rear portion of the vehicle and then displaying the image picked up by the rear-view camera on the monitor screen provided near the driver's seat when the vehicle is to be backed, is equipped begin to spread. For the purpose of preventing the contact with the rear obstacle when the vehicle is to be backed at the time of parking, the wide-angle camera is employed as this rear-view camera such that the wide range can be covered in the screen.
In order to couple the trailed vehicle such as the trailer, the camping car, etc. to the rear portion, there are vehicles in which the hitch is provided to the rear portion. When the trailer, etc. is coupled to this hitch, the vehicle is to be backed such that the hitch of the vehicle coincides with the trailer side coupler. But it is a very troublesome driving operation to back the vehicle while controlling the steering wheel such that the hitch that is fitted to a dead angle position, which is not directly seen from the driver, coincides with the trailer side coupler.
The driver can carry out the hitch coupling operation, which is executed by backing the vehicle, alone by displaying the image picked up by the rear-view camera on the monitor screen and then monitoring the monitor image. However, the rear-view camera in the prior art has the main purpose to execute the safety check in backing the vehicle by providing the picked-up image of the camera to the driver, as described above. Thus, the monitor image display format in which it is considered to couple the hitch to the trailed vehicle side coupler is not provided. Therefore, if the camera mode in which the hitch is not contained in the picked-up image of the camera is set, it is impossible to check the situation of the coupled portions from the monitor image. As a result, there is caused the problem that the driving aiding system in the prior art is not totally useful for the hitch coupling operation.